Making You Not Sue
I was sitting down with my significant other the other day while she was in the midst of a character creation session for a horror game I was going to run. Being relatively new to the gaming community, it helps her make characters if I ask questions like “Where do they work? What’s their favorite color? What are their hobbies?”
About a half hour later she looked at her character sheet and made a great big pouty frown that I recognized as artistic frustration and worry. When I asked her what was wrong she said some terrible and terrific magic words:
“She’s just like me.”
Now, all RPG characters act as avatars for our own wills in game, whatever they may be. Inevitably, one plays under the assumption that their character is the protagonist, or at least a supporting character on the protagonist’s side.
Recently (in the last decade) there’s been a lot of stewing over the term “Mary Sue” in the literary community, a phrase which simultaneously means “Author Self insert” and “boring character.”
So if we look at those two thought processes together, we can easily see how one may begin to become hesitant- nay, fearful- of creating a dreaded Mary Sue character. For those of you who do sweat that…
Take a fucking pill and relax.
Ask any long time gamer, and we’ll all tell you we had a Mary or Gary Sue character back in the day, or that they were knock-offs of major fiction characters, or were clear tropes/stereotypes, or that had some of our same interests or hobbies; but do we have them now?
You bet your sweetest d20 we do!
Once my friend Oliver introduced me to his regular gaming group for a guest session I was in. Midway through a sweet move I’d pulled, he stops and says, “Everybody, this is Blaine. He plays Tricksters and Berserkers.” My initial reaction was, admittedly, shock. Was I that easy to categorize? A twinge of offense rolled through me, but the better part of my brain put it down and immediately I felt honored. My friend had, with sublime grace and subtlety, gotten to know me as a player well enough to identify my strengths when I hadn’t.
I play Tricksters and Berserkers. Why? Because I’m DAMN good at it, that’s why!!!
What’s the point of trying to play a tormented soul, wrestling to reconcile his humanity with his tortured past and having to struggle to handle the role when I can play a conniving huckster or a hulking brute and knock the ball out of the park?
Why play an indie-soft rock fan who’s emotionally fragile and constantly be reminded to stay in character when I can play a metalhead or punk-rocker and get the part right?
Listen, I’m not saying cut and paste EVERY real world facet of you into your character, but if you don’t have some thing or things that connect you to your character, they’ll be devoid of that spark, that vital essence which will drive you to give them life and play them in a believable fashion.
If you like collared polo shirts and khakis, baseball and classical music, playing a teenage detective in an ascot is ok; you don’t have to take the stoner or the nerdy hipster and struggle with feeling for and reacting appropriately with the character.
Five minutes later after similar advice and some small adjustments, my SO had a lovely character and we played a horror game that had her eyes bugging out of her head, which I couldn’t have done if she hadn’t made her character like to spend time in the woods, a hobby she and her character shared.
We might not be our characters, but they’re still masks we make and wear, so make sure you make or choose one that feels right. Cater to your strengths, and don’t worry about what the crowd thinks.
Afterall, those fucks can’t cast FIREBALL.
